


Abel

by orphan_account



Category: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: AU where political parties take human form, Gen, I'm not sure which is the harder to believe, also an AU where David Miliband is not much of a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-25 11:20:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4958602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Race de Caïn, ta besogne</i>
  <br/>
  <i>N'est pas faite suffisamment;</i>
  <br/>
</p><p>One might call this an apology for David Miliband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abel

**Author's Note:**

>    
> Almost all of what follows is untrue.

 

 

_1969_

Christmas Day, and they come home with a crowd of strangers- their faces, in all David's memories of the occasion, blurred by fairy-lights and pipe-smoke- but at least they've brought the baby. The men he's only ever seen before on the television huddle together, and talk in voices that sound like the water in the drains; when he's given the baby to hold, they crowd round with vague, grey expressions.

"You'll look after him, David, won't you?" asks Mr. Wilson, in his rounded, floating sort of voice. "He's a very special little child."

David affords him a patronising look over the bundle of muslins and brother in his lap.

"Yes, I _know,_ Prime Minister," he says, patiently. "He's my brother, and a baby, and also you have to hold their heads properly or-"

Mr. Benn laughs good-naturedly, huffing and puffing smoke everywhere. David wrinkles his nose.

"True, my boy, very true. But _this_ is rather better than that."

Mr. Benn crouches down, eyes conspiratorial and full of mischief. In David's arms, the baby blinks awake with a small, happy sound.

"Your brother, David- well, I must admit that it's all rather long and boring, and in perfect honesty we don't know half as much as Mr. Brown and Mr. Healey over there would like you to think we do- but, well, let me see. The simplest way of putting it, I suppose, would be to say that this little child- your new brother- well, he's _us_. All of us, in fact."

But that's rather vague, and David still doesn't understand, until Tony clarifies,

"He's the Labour party."

 

-

 

_1970_

Ed is only little, but David is nearly six the first time they watch the Conservatives win an election. It's like watching the worst thing in the world; Dad stone-faced and still, and their mother shouting until she throws a slipper at the television set, and Ed won't stop crying, not even when David strokes his hair and gives him the sweets he'd been hiding under the bed.

 _Why are you so sad_ , he asks Ed, and Ed just looks up at him with tears clinging to his lashes; says, in a small and bewildered voice, _Don't know_.

David knows, though, because Mr. Benn told him, and he hugs Ed close, hoping he can look after him as he'd promised, until they both fall asleep together.

 

-

 

_1974_

Ed's five, there's no single-party majority in Parliament, Prime Minister Heath is in talks with the Liberals, and Ed can't seem to stop shaking. David watches him as they eat, watches him try to ignore the great awful tremors in his spine and wrists and fingers and, after Ed drops his cutlery for the third time, watches him running from the dinner table.

David, after a moment's hesitation, grabs some fruit and a knife and a packet of biscuits from the larder and follows him upstairs. They sit together peaceably on the floor of Ed's bedroom for hours after that, David quietly feeding him Jaffa Cakes and pieces of banana and telling him stories about Hugh Gaitskell and Tony Crosland and the importance of revisionism in effecting political theory.

Ed doesn't seem that interested. David doesn’t mind. It’s sort of nice that, despite everything, Ed still prefers fairy tales to politics.

And it turns out alright in the end, anyway, in the autumn when Ed's eyes grow bright again in a way they hadn't been for a while. It's elections, thinks David, it's only the elections that really matter, and that made sense, because that's sort of what _The Future of Socialism_ was about, making sure that you do socialism the way normal people want socialism, so that they vote for you and then, of course, you win.

David reads everything he can find by Tony Crosland. He _hates_ Keep Left, hates Militant; hates everyone who wants to hurt his brother just to make themselves happy. They don't know anything.

Not even Ed knows, because David has explained elections to him and Ed shook his head and said that the party was more than that, that he could feel all of it and, David, the parliament men aren't the only ones there, not at all. Ed says _it's worse, and it's more always and more everything than that,_ which David knows doesn't really make sense.

It's ok, though, because Ed's only five, he doesn't even read Crosland, and at any rate David is here to take care of him until he understands.

 

-

 

_1977_

__

There are always people in the house, coming and going; men from the radio, with names like Jenkins and Radice. There are parties where everyone talks about politics, too, and when they sit at the table or stay up to greet the guests, heads turn to follow his little brother; eyes linger, curious.

Ed's a bit famous, even to people who don't like Labour like Dad. He's even more famous to Labour people, though, and when Ed turns eight they are taken to meet the new Prime Minister- new in the sense that he’s not Mr. Wilson anymore- and he walks through the park with them and buys ice-creams and tells Ed to call him Jim, because Ed's lisp means he struggles with words like _Callaghan_ and _Prime Minister_.

Ed is thrilled, chattering happily when Mr. Callaghan asks him questions.

"-and I could _feel it_ , in '74,  I could feel that we were winning it in my _head_ , like- you know when you're really little and you go too high on the swing and you can see _everything_ but it's scary and all your insides feel like you've had an electric shock-"

Callaghan is laughing and David smiles, feeling proud of Ed and of himself. It's such a big thing, the thing inside Ed, the bit of him that isn't him at all but the whole idea of socialism and the way it is in the minds of everyone in Britain. And they've done so well, he and Ed, keeping everything together, that David has begun to think that they can survive this.

Of course, Dad wants them to go away to America, and David worries. But Ed says it sounds good, actually, because the stuff in his head never changed much when they've moved before and, David, they have baseball and _Dallas_ in America.

"-only it's a feeling that builds for ages, so you're not quite sure where it started, and then there's all the other things, so I can feel the voters very faintly but the members quite strong and the academics have a different sort of- sort of flavour, I suppose- to grassroots or unions or the P-L-P but they're all there together feeling different things and I can sort of _hear_ them, all the sadness and scaredness and hope and it's good but it's very- it's very _heavy_ , you know, there's a lot of it, lots of thoughts and lots of feelings, and really I'd just like to forget all about it sometimes and watch _Dallas_."

It's nothing David hasn't heard before- normally when Ed tries to explain the way the party exists in his head between elections, saying that party unity and purpose and morality are just as important as electorates and votes- but Callaghan's smile has turned a bit sad.

 

...

 

"We don't know for certain how it works, as it happens," he tells them later, over tea- David nods because he can still remember being told that- "no idea whether it's just the state of the party affecting you, Master Miliband, or whether you, vice versa, are affecting the state of the party."

"And who was the last one before me?" Asks Ed, leaning in. "The last- you know, the last Labour one?"

"We think- we're by no means sure, actually. Indeed, my boy, it's entirely possible that you might be the first ever-"

David frowns.

"So how did you know there'd be one?" Callaghan hesitates, and he works it out instantly. "It's the Tories, isn't it? They've got one so you knew we would too, eventually."

Callaghan nods.

"Oh yes. God save her and all that-"

"The _Queen_?"

"Yes. Funny, really... everyone who knows her would swear she was a Liberal. Suppose that means something. And the Liberals themselves, of course, still have theirs from before the War- a sorry thing these days, lives mostly in intensive care units. I believe he's desperate for death. Told me he devoutly hopes he doesn't have a successor. _"Wouldna wish't on a puir babby"_ , he said. Wouldn't wish it on anyo- are you alright, boy?"

David knows how he looks, face twisted and probably pale, but he can't help it.

 _What if Labour goes the same way_ , he doesn't ask. _Or even worse? What happens to Ed then? Is there a point when-_ but he stays silent, because Ed is right there and David doesn't want to scare him.

But Ed lets David hold his hand the whole way home even though he's really too old for that sort of thing, so maybe he had wondered about it too.

 

-

 

_1979_

The winter is bleak. David is scared, then angry, and then bitter.

 

...

The treaty is sealed on Valentine's Day and Ed finally gets out of bed, frail and bird-boned but talking again. For hours David follows him about the house like a shadow, scared and thrilled and anxious. Later, when David gets back from football, Ed watches all the baseball games that David has recorded for him and they avoid talking about the election. Maybe the polls are wrong. Maybe it'll never happen.

In the end, a group of ragtag nationalists ensure that it does, and David quietly vows to crush the SNP, one day, into political irrelevance.

...

The next five years are more awful than anything David's ever known.

They're growing up far too fast. The world, they learn, is not big, and nor is it wide, and wolves do not huff and puff and blow the house down, and monsters do not live under beds but in the mind of man and at No. 10 Downing Street.

 

-

 

_1981_

Dad writes home from America, pages and pages on the state of the Labour party, and David reads over Ed's shoulder.

_If anyone else read this and did not know the way we talk, you talk; they would think I was crazy to be writing this to a twelve year old boy; but I know better, and find it very nice._

Ed grins at that, at the idea of it as a family secret, and David pulls him back and ruffles his hair, laughing at Ed's shrieks of protest.

It's an odd moment of joy. Later, as Ed returns to the letter looking wan and worried, David wishes bleakly that he could stay home, not go up to Oxford, and watch over Ed until Ed could come with him.

**  
-**

 

_1985_

Ed sits on his bed, picking at the quilt and talking in quiet, uneven tones. He's pale. David doesn't need to see to know Ed's ribs will be prominent against his skin.

"- and it was really nice, because I know he hates- well, not hates, and I know it's not really me, but it sometimes feels like it when he goes on- well, you know how- but anyway I remember he took me out leafleting just before- well, you remember- and I asked why and he said, _because no father wouldn't try and protect their child if they could possibly do anything about it._ It was very nice. Don't you think it's nice?"

David nods distractedly into his books, because he's noticed Dad growing closer to Labour too, and all the work he'd been doing with Tony Benn.

It's not going to work. He's sure Dad loves Ed, and means well, but the nice Mr. Benn isn't the way to help.  
 ****

-

 

_1989_

__

"What did you think?" David asks, eyes bright, "Isn't he great?"

Ed smiles, actually smiles, though it's clear he's struggling and his heart is heavy. He's been like this, painfully skinny and pale and forlorn, for years and years, and it devastates David to see it. _It's all this time out of power_ , David tells him, jaw set, and Ed looks unsure but David _knows_. They need Tony, Tony and Gordon and Peter, and when Kinnock enters Downing Street in two years' time it'll have been worth the Militant purge and all the stand-offs with the Unions that had put Ed in hospital with cardiac arrest.

"Gordon's lovely," Ed says carefully, but David had meant Tony. Wants Ed to love Tony- who can, David knows, help Ed get better again.

It's ok. Ed doesn't need to understand yet, doesn't even need to believe that David knows best. David will look after him anyway, because he loves him, and because he still dreams of how Ed's eyes used to be, bright with electoral success and parliamentary power. David still craves the smiles he seldom gets to see anymore.

Kinnock will win, and Ed will realise how right David was, and love him for making him feel good again.

 

-

 

_1992_

Election night, and the moment they see the exit poll he leaves Party HQ, stumbling through the dark of the car-park. The drive to Oxford is long and he tortures himself with memories of defeats past, not knowing what to expect. Sometimes there's been shaking, nausea, and cramps; often, Ed says, shooting pains or the sensation of burning; once, David remembers, hallucinations.

(That Ed still can't see how important the elections are astonishes David, sometimes. Still, he has never underestimated the burden his brother carries. Besides, he'd long ago determined to compensate for any deficiency, re-open any wound- pay any price he had to- for the sake of attaining and keeping government.)

Until he arrives at Corpus, in the dying moments of the day, and lets himself into Ed's unlit rooms, David counts '83 as the most horrific day of his life. There had been five years of hell preceding it, true, as Ed had stopped eating and begun to lose his eyesight; as his hair had fallen out in clumps. The years following had been still worse. On election night, though, as David had sat up with him, watching as pain wracked his little brother's entire body, Ed had begun coughing up blood. David, paralysed with fear, had vowed, silently- anything. _Anything_ to stop this.

It had been agonisingly painful. But turning on the bedroom light to see Ed's body on the floor is worse.

There isn't time to think, to reason, to breathe, and his hands are on Ed's mouth and neck and chest and everywhere, desperately seeking a pulse. After far too long a moment, he finds one, and swears violently with relief, eyes damp. He pulls Ed's unresisting limbs into a hug, swallowing at the muffled, vaguely protesting sound it elicits from his brother.

"You _bastard_ ," he tells Ed, voice shaking and low, "I _hate_ you. Don't fucking _die_ , you've no idea what a _catastrophically_ terrible mistake that would be." Ed shifts, tries to pull away, but David clutches him close and it's immediately evident that Ed hasn't the strength even to sit up unsupported.

There's no shaking or sickness this time, though, and when he asks if he's in pain, Ed only shakes his head, so they end up sprawled on the sofa with a ratty blanket over their legs. Ed's pulse, however, remains sluggish; his skin is cold. There's something terribly bleak in his eyes that scares David almost as much as the blood had.

 _It'll be ok_ , he tells him, soothingly. It'll be ok, because everyone knows Gordon will run against John and win, and '97 will be the year. Their year. He's not sure he believes the words even as he says them, petting at Ed's hair, but it's their calmest election night since '79.  
  
It's just that he'd rather have the violent ones back.

 

-

 

_1993_

Ed's working for Harriet. Which, all things considered, means that Harriet has somehow found out.

"I think we all rather like the idea of the human embodiment of our collective soul working within the party mechanism," she admits, when he corners her and demands to know who told.

"And Tony figured," she adds, tightly, "that you would prefer to have him where you can keep an eye on him. Personally."

Oh. Well, if Tony thinks so.

David tells her he owes her and leaves before she can question him further.

 

 ****-

 

_1994_

****

It's January, with a January frost on the windows; David is covertly watching Ed eat brunch, over the Sunday papers he's supposed to have scanned, when the phone rings. Watches Ed answer; sees his face split into a broad smile.

"Who was that?"

"Gordon."

It's fine. It _is_.

"Oh?"

"Yeah." Ed still looks thrilled. "The tax story? Twigger and I found it in the Commons Library. Gordon didn't think much of it, but-" he leans forward and picks the paper from David's hands with a coy smile. "There it is. Front page. And one in the eye for Major."

David blinks. "Gordon called to admit he was _wrong_?"

"Yeah."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

He's not worried at all. And in three years' time John Smith will be Prime Minister.

 

...

 

Harriet nods when she sees him.

"Looks like I'm about to lose your brother to Gordon," she comments ruefully, "If the way Gordon's been smiling across the table at him in meetings is any indication. And Ed Balls tells me he's fed up of hearing how amazing my new aide is."

She shrugs.

"I deserve it, I suppose. He's much too good for what he's doing. And he's just Gordon's type- serious and speccy. A bit sweeter than most of his lot, though, so I do worry..."

David crumples the sheet of figures he'd been holding and throws it, perhaps unduly bitterly, in what might pass for the direction of the waste-paper bin. 

 

...

 

John Smith's death leaves Ed exhausted and struggling to speak.

Dad's death, twelve days later, leaves him so much worse. 

 

...

 

At the funeral, David speaks first; Ed follows him.

He notices Andrew Glyn lean in to murmur to his wife; across the room, David reads her response from her lips.

_Edward is the real believer in progressive politics._

But Ed just looks sick, sick and sad and slight. David badly wants to hug him, but doesn't.

 

...

 

David is peripherally aware of the bloody mess surrounding Gordon and Tony, of course, and when Tony emerges victorious from the bloody mess in question of course he's pleased, but right now his first concern is Ed.

To Yvette's extreme irritation, he takes to staying over on bad nights.

"You're ok," the pixie-faced human bulldozer tells him one morning, in the kitchen. "And I'm sorry about your dad. But it's bad enough that he never fucking _shuts up_ about you, without you practically moving in. For god's sake let the boy get a life."

He ignores her, because she doesn't understand- how could she- but when Tony makes him Head of Policy it's frantic and demanding and he sees less of Ed than he has since University.

Ed doesn't like what they're doing, doesn't like the changes they've made, paces up and down in David's flat and stubbornly refuses to ask him to change anything back, face flushed and tortured.

"I'm in charge now," David tells him consolingly. "I'm in charge of policy, and I wouldn't- I won't let them hurt you, it's just what's necessary- to win, to change, to modernise, to govern. It won't be anything _wrong_."

Ed says nothing. David can hear, in the silence, how little he believes him.

When he leaves, David punches a wall and fervently curses the name of Gordon Brown.

 

-

 

_1995_

 

''...something to do with snooker. Great game! Fifteen reds for every blue. Sounds like the local election results,'' laughs Tony, and David feels smug, because he'd written that line. He knows Ed will hear it; knows Ed will know it was written for him, and he hopes it might soften the worst of the pain.

It doesn't. Later, in the hospital, his mother's eyes are hard as they sit at Ed's bedside; when Ed gets out, David could swear he's avoiding him.

Tony asks if everything's ok between them, if Ed's doing well, frets that the polls must be wrong again, that Ed should be happier if they were really headed for victory.

David shakes his head, because he'd once thought that, too.

"Her Majesty hated Thatcher, remember? It's the _parties_ that they've got in their heads. He- Ed is _Labour_. He's not the electorate, he's not even the truth. The polls could be perfect and it won't show in him until election day."

Peter nods, but Tony looks unconvinced, so David summons up a bright, insincere smile.

"Don't worry about my little brother. You've got me to do that for you."

 

-

 

_1996_

 

He's in charge of the manifesto. He should be proud– someone should be proud of him– but his mother frowns when he tries to talk about work and Ed won't look him in the eye, not even in public.

 

...

 

Ed's phone goes to answer machine. Again.

_'Hi, this is Ed. I'm not here right now. But if this is Gordon you can reach me on the following number-"_

David hangs up with a snarl of frustration.

 

-

 

1997

It's loud, music and jubilant shouts everywhere, and the lights are so bright as to hurt David's eyes as the first new MPs- Southern and Midlands MPs- start to arrive. He's been up forever, and Ed's been running around the Royal Festival Hall like a kid since 11:00pm, whooping and kissing strangers. David locates him across the room, being hugged by Oona King, and makes towards him.

He pauses to appropriate a tray of canapés, because it's been eighteen years of watching Ed battle ill-health, dejection, and fear, seeing him waste away like a victim of rickets. David is determined that by the time their majority gives way- which will be _never_ , they'll make sure of that- Ed will be downright  _chubby_. David wants to see him with a tummy and glossy hair, his eyesight improved and the shadows under his eyes diminished.

Tonight, though, it's enough just to see him like this, vibrant with joy. Someone catches his arm; it's Ed Balls, who nods towards his riotously happy little brother and asks, oddly serious, if he's drunk. David smiles politely-

"Aren't we all?"

\- and shrugs the blue-eyed little fucker off. Waiting for Gordon, no doubt- as, technically, is his own Ed, who looks almost dazed with joy, greeting him with the widest of smiles.

"Happy now?" He asks, quietly, as Ed obligingly opens his mouth for David to feed him canapés.

Ed swallows, swipes David's champagne-glass from his fingers and presses an apologetic kiss to David's cheek. David wonders, head reeling with pride and love and triumph, whether it's for the stolen champagne or for ever doubting him.

 

…

It gets later, and then the sun begins to come up. David, head dull with drink and exhaustion, wanders through rooms of revellers- if they play fucking D:Ream _one more time_ \- searching for his brother.

More by luck than skill, he does eventually find Ed, perched on a table. He's deep in discussion with Gordon; they're so close their foreheads are almost touching; David bites his tongue and hesitates.

And then Tony sails into the room, party hat askew and an arm round Peter Mandelson's waist.

"Gordon!!! Peter's here!! Pet- oh, oh yeah. You don't, I forgot..."

Tony nods solemnly a few times, then backs awkwardly out of the room, pulling Peter after him; when they reach David in the doorway, Tony grins and shoves him forward, yells _go speak to your brother_ , and darts off, giggling drunkenly.

Ed is watching him. Gordon is watching Ed. David suddenly feels keenly how inebriated he is, and sways a moment.

"Can I- may I speak with you a moment?"

Ed smiles, seriously.

"Go home, David. Drink some water."

David looks from Ed to Gordon. God knows where the other Brownites are, but David has no doubt they'll be back. Brownites bond. Bond and cluster. Like alkali metals. Or... stars? David can't really remember.

He leaves, though, because there are lots of pretty girls here, and even a few pretty boys, and every single one of them seems more inviting than a blazing row about Gordon Brown.

Or maybe he leaves because Ed asked him to. God knows. God knows.

 

-

_1999_

__

"David!"

"Mmrgh?" He'd been asleep, passed out on the sofa, but Louise sounds cross.

"The fax machine is going. Why's the fax machine going?"

David grins, buries his face back in the cushion, and counts silently to three.

With pleasing predictability, Ed's footsteps sound on the stairs and he bursts through the unlocked door in a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms, hair a mess and cheeks flushed.

"David- is there- are-?"

David throws out an arm in the general direction of Louise and the fax machine.

It's kind of nice, he thinks groggily, as Ed goes through to make his awkward apologies to Louise; it's nice having the living embodiment of the party he loves living a flight of stairs away.

So on balance it might even be worth the flagrant abuse of his fax machine.

 

-

_2003_

"I'm leaving," Ed tells him, and he panics.

"Why?"

"Don't look like that-"

"Is this about Gordon?"

"Well, I guess in a sense-"

"Ed, please. Don't- you can't- Christ, I know it's not perfect but we've put our lives into this, look, we're still in power, in Government, and-"

Ed's mouth quirks up.

"It's a sabbatical."

"A sabbatical."

"Yeah."

"Because of Gord- oh. I see. Because he's so demanding?"

"Well, yeah."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"...Stay in touch?"

"...Yeah."

David wonders what else Ed wants to do, how far outside the party his other interests lie. Not that he's worried.

 

...

 

Ed's in London for the week before he has to go back to Harvard, and he looks distraught. David's not seen him so bad since 1995, and for a moment a half-buried fear floods him.

"It'll ruin the party, I can hear them– can hear them in my head– and they're right, it's wrong, this isn't what we are, we don't do this, we're progressive and cosmopolitan and all those fucking _words_ , the words you never stop using, David-"

"Shhh." David presses a comforting hand to his shoulder, and Ed clings back.

"Stop it," he begs, voice tight with pain. "David, it hurts _so much_ , and Tony loves you, he knows you're good, you can stop it, you could."

David very nearly gives in, stroking Ed's back soothingly.

"Be brave," he murmurs, finally. "Be brave, the rest of the party will come round in the end."

But Ed tenses; pulls back with a closed face, turns to the door.

"Ed-"

"Fuck off."

 

 -

 

_2004_

 

"I don't like him being holed up in the Treasury," Tony frets. "He's too much under Gordon's thumb,"

"He didn't like you invading Iraq," David tells him, tersely, because Tony has no _right_ to worry about Ed, not when all Ed's smiles are formal and false and he pushes David away so resolutely.

A year later, Ed gets given Doncaster North. Two year later, Tony makes Ed a minister. David could have told him not to bother.

Ed has been Gordon's man for years.

 

 -

 

_2006_

 

Tony refuses to call for a ceasefire in Israel, and David snaps, opposing him to his face in Cabinet. It's awful and miserable and when he leaves the building he's shaking.

Ed is there to meet him.

"I love you," he tells him, grinning all over his face, "I'm so bloody proud of you, I fucking love you."

It doesn't really make much difference to anything, but Ed's not smiled much recently, or told him he loves him.

David had forgotten.

 

-

 

_2007_

 

When David gets the Foreign Office, when the polls rocket in their favour and Ed glows, practically smug, across the Cabinet table, David feels his decision not to challenge Gordon was justified.

Ed may be limited by the incessant clamour of the party in his head, but he's clever and his view is broader than most.

Maybe this is it. A fourth term. The Tories forever out of government. David will succeed Gordon as PM, of course, and make Ed his right-hand man. Finally, he will be able to properly look after his brother.

 

-

 

_2010_

They all know it's coming. Ed's turned pale in a way he hasn't really been in fifteen years; his suits begin to hang, and David watches from the Foreign Office in increasing despair as he stumbles about, muscles atrophying.

"Don't worry about it," Ed tells him. "I'm fine," he assures everyone.

He's not fine, he's not fucking fine, and when he almost collapses after PMQs one afternoon David catches him before he can hit the floor and calls for a ministerial car.

Ed leans against him all the way to the door, and when David lets them into Ed's house with the keys he keeps next to his own, it's obvious that even that had been a show of strength. He sways, exhausted, and David half-carries him to the sofa and sets about making tea.

"It's ok," Ed keeps saying, faintly, firmly. "I'm ok, thank-you very much, but I'm fine, you mustn't bother."

David ignores him, feeds him tea and biscuits and murmurs that they can recover from this, it'll be alright, just a term out of Government and they'll be back. Ed smiles wryly.

"With you as leader, I suppose?"

"Well, of course," replies David in mock-offence. "Who else is there? I'd crush Balls in a leadership contest. Burnham would crush himself. Yvette would be harder, but she wouldn't run if Ed did..."

 ****Ed nods, absently, and tells him again that he's alright, and David should probably get back to the FCO. Again, David ignores him, and they spend the afternoon watching baseball matches.

The Red Sox win, and though it seems fanciful David could swear the mood in Party HQ the next day is lighter.

 

...

 

David watches in amazement through the television screen as Ed- looking a little unhealthy and a touch dazed but fundamentally _ok_ \- is beamed into the BBC studio to face a grilling from Paxman, calmly insisting on the need for stable government and asserting Gordon’s right to try to form one, calmly rubbishing George Osborne, calmly facing down the more awkward questions.

“And you’re with your brother, are you- it’s Brown or bust?”

And David turns away with a grimace and returns to the bitter business of losing an election.

 

...

 

They’re in the kitchen, David’s kitchen, when Ed tells him he’s running for leader,  _because, well, you know why. I feel like I have to, like this would all be a waste, and I can’t- I know how you feel about Tony, and I can’t- you have to understand, David, after Clause Four- no, not just that, but sometimes I feel so hollowed out with it all and I’m not sure- I’m sorry, but I’m just not sure you understand. If this goes on I won’t just get sick, I’ll be a ghost._

So David nods, teeth clenched, feigning indifference.

_Fine._

He’ll win anyway, and make Ed his Chancellor, so if this helps Ed at all then David’s not going to stop him.

(Ed leaves immediately, and they never settle on a joint account of how that conversation went. Months later, in the aftermath of the result, the press enjoys speculating as to which brother is the liar; it crosses very few minds that both of them are.)

 

-

 

_2015_

And then another exit poll. It's early evening in New York, sun sinking down the window-panes, when the numbers flash across the screen.

_316 – 239 – 58 – 10_

After all the hope and uncertainty, he'd been right all along. Ed, in the end, is too unashamedly himself, too _Labour_ ; too always-and-everything. David has always loved that; loves him; isn't stupid enough to think it means anybody else would be charmed and beguiled in the same way.

He picks up the phone.

"David."

Ed's voice is weak, scratchy, and David is suddenly furious. He could have stopped this. He could. It doesn't matter at all what anyone says. They don't get it. Don't understand. David would always have won, won against any odds, won against any opponent. David would have _needed_ to.

Out of everyone, perhaps everyone in the country, perhaps even more than struggling parents or deprived children or anyone, it's Ed who will suffer most from this loss, so it's Ed who could most afford to lose. But David- like Gordon, excelling the polls' predictions, frantically bargaining with Clegg, even resigning in a desperate attempt to keep them in power- David could never have.

"Ed," he says, softly, angrily, "Ed, tell me who's looking after you. Give me your symptoms."

Ed exhales in a shaky, self-loathing laugh, and then there is a stubborn silence on the other end of the phone.

"Will you resign?" David asks tightly, knowing the answer. Ed will be in a bad way for weeks; Harriet will be far better-placed to face the new Government.

"Tomorrow morning."

David badly wants to be with him, as he’s always been with him on these nights. But Ed had made it quite clear, five years ago, that he didn't want that. If it takes an ocean and eight hours of flight time between them to respect his wishes, David is quite happy to keep them there.

"I miss you," Ed tells him softly. "I- The party was so cross when you left."

David nods, resists the urge to ask Ed to miss him just for his own sake. That's just not how they do things, the two of them; that’s not the way they’ve ever done anything.

"And if I want to come back?"

"Don't know. I don't even know if they want you any more."

That stings.

"And you?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"You can say you'd be delighted nicely or you can say it reluctantly."

The silence lasts an age.

"I'd be delighted."

David smiles, sadly. All this time and still Ed doesn't understand.

"Get well soon, little brother."

"Stay safe, David."

When Ed hangs up, David sits stone-faced and still until the room grows dark and the faces on the television blur.

Until Nuneaton.

Until Scotland is bathed yellow with the blood of Labour MPs.

Until Morley and Outwood repudiates one of the finest economic minds of David’s generation.

Until his son wakes in the small hours of the morning, and turns on the lamp and climbs into his lap and asks, in a small and bewildered voice, _Why are you so sad_.

And David hugs the small boy close and says, as softly as he can manage, with as much sincerity as he can pretend, _Don't know_.

 

 


End file.
